Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?
Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)—
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.
by Robert Frost (1874–1963)
Hard-working guy #1: bumblebee on Echinacea purpurea var. Magnus.
Hard-working guy #2: bumblebee on Knautia macedonica var. Melton Pastels.
Hard-working guy #3: painted lady butterfly (Cynthia cardui) on Echinacea purpurea var. Magnus.
And for any languages nerd out there (that is, besides me): here‘s an interesting thread about hardworking vs. hard-working. Have a great weekend!
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Cultivate the habit of zest. Purposefully seek out the beauty in the seemingly trivial. Especially in the trivial. The colors and shapes of the foods you eat. The shadows a vase makes on your table. The interesting faces of the people on the bus with you. – Karen Salmansohn
I snapped the image above with my iPhone (remember, the best camera is the one that you have with you) on my daily walk. A play of light and shadows, tree branches over a parking spot.
I’d make this the first rule of photography: always bring the camera; and your attention.
One of the joys in otherwise a pretty bleak summer (hey, COVID-19!) has been the re-opening of Millesgården. Not only for me but apparently for a large number of other people. I’ve been there several times since the re-opening at the end of April, and there were many people every time. Mostly Swedish tourists, though, usually there are busloads of foreign tourists. In any case, it’s good to see Millesgården open again, and so many people enjoying it.
The Venus Fountain (1917) showing the godess’ birth from the sea.
The Middle Terrace with its’ row of lemon trees.
Middle Terrace – on the right hand you can see The Genius (1940).
The statue is a replica of a grave monument to the Swedish actor Gösta Ekman.
Cymbalaria muralis grows on the steps of Olga’s Terrace.
Olga’s Terrace, Carl Milles tribute to his Austrian-born wife. Olgas was an artist, too; she was a painter.
The Aganippe Fountain (1955). The indoor fountain was created for the Metropolitan Museum but has later been moved to Brookgreen Gardens (South Carolina). I like how Milles re-interpreted the Greek myth and changed the muses, typically portraited as women, to young boys.
The Water Nymph, part of the The Aganippe Fountain.
The Aganippe Fountain: the musicians (and in the background, the painter).
Rose is a is a rose is a rose. (Gertrude Stein)
Small flowered clematis on the upper terrace.
The wonderful flower beds on the Lower Terrace with St. Martin sharing his mantle with a beggar in the background. St. Martin’s statue is part of the St. Martin Fountain from 1955, Carl Milles’ last completed work of art.
The flowerbed has been created by Ulf Nordfjell, a well-known Swedish garden designer. The theme this year is Bumblebees and bees go pink.
You have no idea how hard it was to take this photo. This is a small service area, and water hoses, buckets, wheelbarrows, or other garden tools are very often strewn about. This time there were two wheelbarrows and one huge waste bag (the kind of bag that has to get picked up by a truck due to its weight).
It is a quite pleasant spot when not encumbered with wheelbarrows and the like, and I really wanted to capture it. I know that many people would just retouch the photo and remove the stuff, but that’s not me. I like a challenge and making the most of what there is, not create an illusion. I also think that creating those composite photos, adding bits and pieces to create one fantastic image, is not what photography is about. As all artists know, creativity thrives on constraints.
The large flowers of angel’s trumpets Brugmansia suaveolens. All Brugmansia species are amongst the most toxic of ornamental plants!
Lemon trees in front of Anne’s house, a two-room house built by Carl Milles for his secretary.
I’ll stop here for now (congratulations if you’ve made this far!), but you can be sure there’ll be more Millesgården posts on this blog.
In the meantime, stay safe, stay healthy, and soldier on. And don’t forget to laugh.
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Once again, I have a garden, and, as you may have guessed from the scarcity of my posts, this is where I spend most of my time nowadays. If you spend even a short period of time in Sweden, you learn to make the most of the fine weather.
Do you know that joke about Swedish summer? The Swedish summer is the most wonderful day of the year. It’s no surprise then that one of the most popular songs in Sweden is Sommaren är kort (the summer is short).
These are the first two flower beds I made. I really want the garden to be a bit wild, so you won’t see formal beds and manicured laws here. We have a wilder part in the back yard, with ancient trees and a small hill, so they fit perfectly.
It’s also a very wildlife-friendly garden. Above, you can see one of the insect baths in a sea of purple salvia that butterflies and bees love. I also have several birdbaths and one larger water container for hedgehogs and deer. I do try to plant flowers and plants that the deer wouldn’t eat, but it’s a lottery, really.
A bumble bee drilling into a flower of Calamintha nepeta.
Another bumblee bee completely buried in a foxglove.
Bumble bee on Salvia nemorosa var. Ostfriesland.
The small squirrel is from Skansen souvenir shop.
Herr Kanin (Mr. Rabbit) comes from my favorite plant nursery, Ulriksdal. I spend an unreasonably amount of time (and probably money too) at Ulriksdal, but it’s a great place. They have a wide range of healthy plants and many lovely garden decorations, like Herr Kanin here.
Do I have flamingos and garden gnomes? Why, yes! This garden was not made for the Chelsea Flower Show.
Not so wild wildlife in the garden: Minette the tabby on patrol. I’ll be straight behind her for my daily garden stroll, checking on all plants, deadheading, and swearing over one or another snail.
That’s it for now, but you can be sure there’ll be more garden updates soon.
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The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a sniffed-out candle. – Albert Einstein
Fear not, my blog silence was not due to anything dramatic. Sure, a certain amount of pandemic fatigue, to be expected after weeks and months of it, with no end in sight. But I’ve tried to stay calm and soldier on as there wasn’t much I could do about it.
With so much time suddenly on our hands, my husband and I have decided to concentrate our efforts on the garden. It’s quite a large garden (three times the size of our old garden) that has been neglected for the last few years. I.e., there’s a lot to do so we’ve been working every single day outdoors.
My new routine: write for a couple of hours in the morning, go for a walk, work in the garden for the rest of the day, then read a couple of hours in the evening. I suspect this will be my new normal, at least this summer.
I was too exhausted to take any pictures; I just snapped a few with my cell phone. This is one of the birdbaths, surrounded by forget-me-nots. They’re everywhere, together with lilacs, lilies-of-the-valley, and honeysuckle. No hardship working in the garden then, as you can imagine!
So, stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay calm and soldier on. And don’t forget to laugh. This video is about 20 minutes long, but please, believe me, it’s worth the time!
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This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. This is how civilizations heal. I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge – even wisdom. Like art. – Toni Morrison
As always, books are comforting. Both to write and to read. To give away, to loan, or to borrow. To read aloud or listen to. A shelter from the madness outside. Consolation. Oh, the “sweet serenity of books,” as Longfellow puts it.
I write a bit; I delete a bit more, pause, stare through the window at the rough sea and the white clouds of the surf. A blackbird jumps back and forth on the grass, looking for worms. The cat suns herself, lazily licking her paw. I write away the virus, the anxiety, the madding crowd.
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Since my house burned down
I now have a better view
of the rising moon
– Mizuta Masahide (1657–1723)
Amid the alarming corona reports, fake news, and yes, fear and anxiety, Masahide reminds us that beauty can be found everywhere, even in challenging times. We only need to pay attention.
So, take a break from your busyness, look around, and see the world as it were new.
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As for whether this is the last time we will hear a new Bob Dylan song. I certainly hope not. But perhaps there is some wisdom in treating all songs, or for that matter, all experiences, with a certain care and reverence, as if encountering these things for the last time. I say this not just in the light of the novel coronavirus, rather that it is an eloquent way to lead one’s life and to appreciate the here and now, by savouring it as if it were for the last time. To have a drink with a friend as if it were the last time, to eat with your family as it were the last time, to read to your child as if it were the last time, or indeed, to sit in the kitchen listening to a new Bob Dylan song as if it were the last time. It permeates all that we do with greater meaning, placing us within the present, our uncertain future, temporarily arrested.
Nick Cave, the Australian singer, songwriter, and front figure of the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, on a question about Bob Dylan’s latest song in his Red Hand Files (where he answers questions from fans).
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